Dads. They're teachers, role models, and so much more. We're paying tribute to dads and fatherhood in the Childhood Stories group, but we can't do it without you.
From now through Father's Day on June 17th, Gather is asking you to share your stories, memories, and odes to dear old Dad. What's your happiest memory of Dad? How about the funniest? Do you remember your first Father's Day as a parent? What makes a great dad?
We're looking for all sorts of tales in celebration of fatherhood and the role that fathers play in our lives. Dads can come in many forms. As Alice Walker once said,
"It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all."
To submit your tribute, just join the Childhood Stories group and begin writing! Make sure to publish to "Everyone" and check the box next to Childhood Stories before you hit the "publish" button.
Gather Editorial will also be featuring stories about dads all Father's Day weekend-check back to the Gather homepage on the 16th and 17th to see if your story was chosen!
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Comments: 25
In some ways, he was more like a friend than a Father. But he was that too.
My fondest memory of him, was from when I was a kid, we used to take two
street cars from the North Side of Pittsburgh, to Forbes Field in Oakand to
watch the Pittsburgh Pirates play a baseball game. And we would always
stop in town, at the White Tower and get a hamburger. I have many other
great memories of my Father. But this was the tops. rpw
I hope people will enjoy it, as I enjoyed writing it.
Thanks for letting me share this story! And for the opportunity to read so many other great stories about fathers out there!
THE MAN WITH BLUE EYES
When moments brought strife
Who helped us through life?
Why the man with blue eyes
And a smile that lit skies.
Who helped us over the hill
When our Mother was so ill.
Why the man with blue eyes
And a smile that lit skies.
Who cooked meals that were good
When our bellies needed food.
Why the man with blue eyes
And a smile that lit skies.
Who dried our weeping eyes
When Mother finally died.
Why the man with blue eyes
And a smile that lit skies.
Who made us feel glad
When we felt, so bad.
Why the man with blue eyes
And a smile that lit skies
Who did at times, words , find
When life was so unkind.
Why the man with blue eyes
Father, with a smile that lit skies.
THE END Marj Busby Modbury Heights South Australia.
I found the sight unspeakably ugly, and I screamed insults at him for several minutes.
Maybe that's why he left.
You asked.
He was a carpenter by trade and here more than any other place his talents became obvious. Not only could he mentally calculate the materials he needed for construction, but he also used his incredible skills to our advantage as well. Once, during a particularly lean period, we needed new furniture. Since there was no money for purchasing new furniture, dad reupholstered an old sofa and built a server/buffet for our dining room along with several other tables and cabinets. While his choice of fabric for the sofa was questionable, a red leather-like fabric, and very embarrassing to my sister, I like it.
He farmed as well, growing much of what we were to eat the following year. Naturally dark-skinned since he was of American-Indian and French stock, dad's natural color was deepened by the wind and sun and hardened, too, to a leather-like consistency. Sometimes he would come home from a job site with a splinter in his hand or finger. Mother or I would be asked to help him remove it and I remember how difficult it was to push a needle into his tough skin, and I smile because I also remember wondering then if the needle would survive the effort.
Dad loved sweets; particularly he loved chocolate covered cheeries and ice cream. After working a long day in the sweltering summer heat, he would come home to find his dinner, one of fresh vegetables warming on the stove, only to choose for dinner instead, a half-gallon carton of ice cream. He explained to my mother that he had to have something cold. Chocolate was always a gift on Father's Day or for Christmas, and my dad absolutely loved getting all that chocolate.
Dad was also notorious for his driving. He didn't speed, but he had a habit of backing out of drives or parking spaces without looking. Needless to say he collected quite a portfolio of fender-benders over the years. Once he even crashed throught the front window of a nursing home, performing a miracle of sorts, since an elderly gentleman confined to a wheelchair left the chair to either walk or run when dad came driving into the room. His dog, however, trusted his driving implicitly. Every evening when dad drove into our drive, he stopped long enough for his dog to leap up onto the front of his truck and stand there as dad drove slowly up the drive.
For many years, prior to my birth, my dad struggled with alcoholism, another characteristic I associate with his generation. Daddy, however, eventually licked the disease and his determination and success serve as evidence of an inner strength that defines him for me today, as a survivor.
Several years ago, I visited a local art museum as a requirement for an art class in which I was enrolled at the time. The paintings, many by artists of renown, were impressive to say the least. One, I've never forgotten because as I studied the face of the elderly man, obviously a farmer, I saw my father. Maybe it was the weariness the artist captured and expressed through his subject's eyes; maybe it was the fatigue carved in his face by the simple struggle to survive; whatever it was, I saw the same history of struggle in the painting that I saw in my dad. Two times in my life I witnessed his devastation. The first was when a cotton crop he planted, funded by a loan from my grandmother, was destroyed. The second devastation was when he buried my sister; frankly I never thought him capable of such grief, but he was heart-broken. Today, for him the struggle is over. He rests peacefully now alongside my mother in a little country cemetery across the road from the church where they were married years earlier. Appropriately, it seems, they ended the life they shared on this earth where it began when they married. Though he was a hard man in many ways, and though I wonder sometimes if I ever really knew him, I believe he was a good man and might have been, in another time and place, a great man.
I just wanted to say I am finally going through what is now under 5,900 pieces of gather new mail that is in my inbox on here. So with that in mind I have finally come to a piece of mail that was addressed to me in regards this article submission you have created to share with the gather community. Thank you for taking the time and sharing your piece with us here at gather. :o)
And I hope you have a Happy New Year... in 2009 :o)